Richter Scholar Program

Corporate environmental risk isn't just about reputation—it's measurable in balance sheets. I analyzed 10-K disclosures from S&P 500 companies to quantify how biodiversity-related risks correlate with financial leverage. Building fixed-effects regression models in R, I identified key drivers of environmental exposure and developed frameworks for sustainability-informed financial assessment. This research required navigating messy, unstructured corporate disclosures and transforming qualitative risk language into quantitative metrics. The work culminated in a presentation at Lake Forest College's Brain, Mind & Behavior Symposium to an audience of 200+ faculty, students, and alumni.